The present invention relates to a processing unit having a panel equipped with a control component and/or a display component and supported movably with respect to a unit main body.
The above-mentioned processing unit has a panel equipped with a control component and/or a display component, with said panel being supported movably with respect to the unit main body so that even people with limited eye height or who cannot get as close to the unit main body, such as a person in a wheelchair, can easily operate the control component and can easily make out the display of the display component. For example, with an image processing unit such as a copier, printer, or fax machine, there have been proposals in the past for units that allowed the attachment angle of the panel to be changed (see JP2004-85762 A, for example), and for units that allowed the panel to be moved toward the front of the unit main body (see JP2004-38094 A, for example).
Meanwhile, the above-mentioned people with limited eye height or who cannot get as close to the unit main body may need to be able to move the panel to the side with respect to the unit main body, and to change the control component and/or the display component from an upward orientation to a lateral orientation facing to the side with respect to the unit main body. In this case, combining the above prior art requires that two operations be performed, in which the panel is moved to the side with respect to the unit main body, and the control component and/or the display component is changed from an upward orientation to a lateral orientation, the drawback to which is that the operation is complicated. Performing such operations is particularly difficult for a person in a wheelchair.